The Dressage Basics with Clemens Dierks – Part 1

Australian dressage coach, Clemens Dierks is without doubt the most successful dressage trainer Australia has ever seen. Almost single-handedly he has built FEI competition in Australia from nothing, into a major contest, and it is no surprise that Australia’s leading riders queue to take advantage of his talents. Here Clemens takes time out to discuss the all important fundamentals…

“It is very important to have impulsion in the horse and that means the horse has to be forward, but then we have to make a clear difference between forward and fast. In the past Australian riders had their horses going more fast than forward.”

“When I start a horse, I mainly want it round, so it is able to come up in the back, to lift the back, as much as possible to arch the back, to be able to carry the rider’s weight. Then, and this is another thing that we haven’t done well in the past, I must establish rhythm right from the early days with every young horse. If the horse is ridden fast, it loses rhythm.”

“If the horse is not trained in a correct manner from the beginning, you end up with rough performances, and you will get resistance in all the exercises. People talk about ‘the basics’ and that means that the horse must accept the bridle, accept the aids, go straight, have rhythm, be supple, and have impulsion.”

“If there is the slightest resistance to allowing the half halt to flow through the body of the horse, you end up with an unsteady, irregular, resisting horse whenever you ask for more collection, or introduce a new exercise. If a horse shows resistance it can never score a very high mark in a dressage test.”

“When I start schooling a horse, the first thing I look for is rhythm, I look to see that the horse is steady. I do like to work horses forward and downwards, as I prefer to say instead of round. It is important that people don’t forget to bring the hindquarters under. The horse that is brought super-deep like you see some of the top riders do, which I like because it really brings the back up, is more able to come off the forehand, and engage than a horse who is going only deep and fast.”

“To establish rhythm you use the half halt. The function of the half halt is to control the tempo of the horse. It is used to bring the horse from a higher movement to a lower movement, like canter to trot, trot to walk. To come into halt you give a full halt, which is a bit stronger.”

“A half halt is not so easy to explain because there many variations of degree depending on the sensitivity of your horse. For example, I was just working with a rider and we were trying to make a transition from canter to walk and the horse consistently trotted five strides between the canter and the walk. For me a horse that trots in this transition is, number one on the forehand, and must pull a lot. That indicates that the driving aids, which are part of the half halt, and the actual take of the rider to indicate to the horse to slow down, are ineffective.”

“Sometimes when I’m teaching I ask a rider to make a full halt, even if I want a walk, just to increase the response of the horse and help the rider get the feel of the half halt. The rider needs to use stronger aids to achieve the effect. The horse, from its mouth through the reins to the hands, speaks to the rider, and the rider to the horse. So if you repeat fifty times, the same transition, and don’t get the message through, then the aids are insufficient to achieve what you want to do. Then you have to get a bit sharper with the horse to get the result. If you want to do a transition, canter to halt, and the horse trots forever in the middle, you have to do something.”

“If your horse is travelling in a rhythm that is a little bit quick, you have to bring the horse back through the half halt. You drive the horse from behind with your forward driving aids, into a restraining hand, but you immediately give again when the horse achieves the correct tempo. You can give the reins, take the reins, hold the reins, you can have a restraining hand, but you must give the rein as quickly as you possibly can, because if you take and don’t give, the rein can pull. When you take and don’t give, the horse will pull.”

“When you take with the rein, unless you have the ratio of two thirds push, one third take, the balance will be wrong, you are not riding with your seat. You must have a good seat to produce a half halt, it’s much more your seat than your hands. You need a seat that is effective to drive, and allows you to use your driving aids. You develop your seat through practise and being able to analyse when it is not really sufficient. If your horse is cantering flat, you need to have lessons, somebody has to tell you to drive a bit more into a half halt to get more jump in the canter. Practice will develop your seat, it’s mainly practice and the ability to analyse when it’s not sufficient – when there’s insufficient activity and engagement, and you need someone to tell you that.”

“If your horse does not respond to your driving aids, it has not been taught to react correctly. Most people kick their horses every stride, and they will go slower and slower in years to come. It’s the same principle as before, if you kick the horse a bit more for one stride, and then don’t touch him for the next ten, you are developing more effective driving aids. Your horse learns to move away from you, instead of against you, they only learn to move against you if you keep nagging at them.”

“I find it a lot in piaffe, people sit and kick and kick, they punish the horse for every stride it wants to do, instead of preparing the horse better and electrifying it prior to piaffe so it wants to do piaffe by itself. Most good piaffes, you don’t see anything, the rider’s legs don’t even move. Look at any bad piaffes, you see the riders kicking, and nothing happens.”

“The whip can be very effective if used correctly, like everything else. Some riders hit the horse every step, and soon the horse will not take any notice. If applied correctly, with a purpose, and the purpose is achieved through the correct application of the whip, you can also train the horse to respond better. But the whip still must be used in conjunction with your leg, as you don’t have a whip later on when you compete at higher levels. Sometimes, with some horses, it’s better to train off your leg and seat.”

“If used correctly, all aids can be of assistance. You have all sorts of horses, nervous horses, self-going horses, and you don’t need to apply a whip to those types. The horse tells you what to do. If you have a lazy horse, apply the whip once, apply it properly, it’s better than a hundred times without result. I use a whip to start piaffe sometimes, as with spurs the horses only learn to go against the leg, and I try to teach riders not to use spurs too much. If you practise piaffe using the whip and you use it and get an instant result, then you find you don’t have to use it. My aim is to get such a sensitivity and response that thinking the movement should just about create it. I aim at the least possible visible aids to the horse. That’s how you get the best performance in a test.”

“A horse that goes hollow is never able to engage properly, to collect properly. It will most likely never find rhythm and harmony and be able to swing over the back, it will never be steady, and it will probably get sore somewhere and become useless. Horses must have submission and accept the bridle. A sound and healthy horse, from the beginning, has no problem in accepting the bridle. We are not talking about horse problems here, we are talking more about rider problems, because I’ve never seen a horse with a good rider going hollow.”

“A horse must go through and onto the bit in a proper way. Through is a word that nobody really thinks about – it means that the horse accepts everything and allows every aid to be effective without resistance. For example, if I do an extended trot and I want to come into a passage, my aids, my half halts must go through the horse, to create a very smooth transition. If I get the slightest coming against my hand, it doesn’t work. We are working all the time to get rid of the resistance and to maintain the basic paces. Many riders do all the tricks, all the different exercises, but lose the rhythm and the quality and impulsion of the basic paces.”

“I say to many of my pupils, if you have ten riders doing a perfect half pass, the horse with the best basic pace will get the highest score in a test. It is not so difficult to get the bend, to get the angle, to get the frame, but many people lose the trot as they ride more with the reins than with the seat. They don’t think to maintain the basic paces, and to improve them within the exercises.”

“When we are thinking about making horses round, the problem I see is when people try to imitate an Anky van Grunsven or an Isabell Werth, it doesn’t work unless they can ride. Many people get the horse round but they don’t use their seat correctly and the horses roll up more than anything else, and don’t engage, and the riders may never get the horse’s head up again. Whatever you do when you are training horses has to be done correctly if you want to produce horses that go beautifully like Bonfire or Gigolo. It’s up to the riders. We have good horses now in Australia, I see marvellous horses, some of them as good as in Europe. Our good riders are getting better, and are very good.”

Story and Photos by Roz Neave

Go to: The Dressage Basics with Clemens Dierks – Part 2